How did you first leave and then rediscover your TMNT interest?

[Powder]

I've always rode heavily with TMNT but it was the 25th anniversary that inspired me to get back into collecting & interact with the fandom.

[sdp]

I started to like the turtles since I was a little kid so I don't even know how but I loved them, of course this was during the turtle fad so it probably wasn't difficult to get into the turtles. I continued liking the turtles even after the fad ended and even if other shows came along that took some of the attention of the turtles like Power Ranger, Saint Seiya, etc.

However the lack of turtles merchandise/video games/show didn't help me stay huge into the turtles as the other fads/franchises that were big at the time had my attention. I was 100% in with The Next Mutation when merchandise came out. But as I grew older as a kid other things had my attention, Dragon Ball Z was now my favorite show as it was more "mature" and when you're 10=12 that's what you want, video games took more of my time and Star Wars along those things were more acceptable and everywhere even if I still liked TMNT. Pokemon became huge and got all my attention even if that wasn't as "mature"

after Pokemon well I became a teen so I was no longer interested in cartoons I just grew out of them and preferred video games in my early teens and later just music however when I saw the OT TMNT DVD of season 1 it made me really nostalgic but it really wasn't until volume 2 (or 3?) that I really got into TMNT hardcore as this nostalgia rushed of when I was a kid and saw there was this new awesome show that was a bit more "grown up" and it's around this time that I registered on the Drome. Since re-discovering the turtles I've never stopped liking them again, they're just something I like a lot and that will never change. Now I do go on breaks with franchises so I can go months or years without consuming any TMNT media or news and then I get the itch to get back into the fandom because of some big news or it's been so long TMNT just seems fresh again. I rotate a lot from franchise to franchise like this until I get burnt out and go the the next but that doesn't mean I don't like them, I just take small breaks.

[CyberCubed]

Its funny how I never wavered from TMNT. I still plan to be here decades from now when we get the 4th, 5th, or 6th TMNT cartoons and educating all the future kids/teens in the fanbase the history of the franchise.

[Jephael]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Its funny how I never wavered from TMNT. I still plan to be here decades from now when we get the 4th, 5th, or 6th TMNT cartoons and educating all the future kids/teens in the fanbase the history of the franchise.

There's only one person I trust to share the history of the TMNT with future generations: Michelle Ivey. As much flak as she's gotten about the internet, she's the one true TMNT fan and loves all aspects of it, no matter how trivial or corny as they may get. She's actually had conversations with the creators of the comics, shows, movies and toys we're all so fond of!

[sdp]

oh boy. I think the fandom rather have the franchise they love die than that ever happen.

[DevilSpooky]

Well, when I was a kid I was all about TMNT, the SNES Turtles in Time, the playmates toys, the FW wolf cartoon, original movies and the Archie comics was all I could think about, then I kinda wandered off mainly because of Biker Mice From Mars, around the time where Next Mutation came around I think (don't even rememember anything about the Red Skies FW years), but TMNT was always a part of me, but only as fond memories, even during my Dragon Ball fad (impossible to escape that here, it was evewhere and it was huge, bigger than anything else around here until then and ever since, for kids and adults alike).

Then the TMNT became a inside joke between me and my girl, with me always asking her to buy me a Turtle everytime she went shopping, until she bought me the 25th Anniversary re-releases of the Playmates toys, then the Nick show came and I was pulled back, tracked out every cartoon, every movie, every comic and every canon figure of the boys I could get my hands on, then the movie finally got off the ground and that's where I joined this forum, and here I am, having my life orbiting around the TMNT again, like I was when I was just a little kid...

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by DevilSpooky

Well, when I was a kid I was all about TMNT, the SNES Turtles in Time, the playmates toys, the FW wolf cartoon, original movies and the Archie comics was all I could think about, then I kinda wandered off mainly because of Biker Mice From Mars, around the time where Next Mutation came around I think (don't even rememember anything about the Red Skies FW years), but TMNT was always a part of me, but only as fond memories, even during my Dragon Ball fad (impossible to escape that here, it was evewhere and it was huge, bigger than anything else around here until then and ever since, for kids and adults alike).

I never understood how Biker Mice managed to get a cult following in our country.

[dragonside]

when i was a kid, one of my friends introduced me to TMNT through the first movie on vhs... and my dad went to the flea market to find some more cartoon episodes. I think my brother was more into it than me.

Then there was a very long gap, and I did check out the 2003 4kids series on fox box from time to time and also the 1997 next mutation when it aired. But I never really "got into it". I was more into Pokemon...

Then... as I found my way to University, I made a trip to zellers... and bought Season 1 part 1 for $2 of the 2003 series in 2009 and that's how it all began. I become obsessed with gaining TURTLE POWER - 9 years and counting.

[DarkFell]

TMNT started off as a kid thing for me. The FW cartoon eventually waned and so did my interest for the franchise. I eventually obtained the TMNT Challenges book from a former friend, but very little happened to bring me back into the TMNT vibe.

That mostly changed when I came across this thread http://forums.thetechnodrome.com/sho...s+avery+passed. After reading through that thread, I pushed myself into watching the old toon just 'for the heck of it.' Therefore, I re-watched many of the episodes of the old show through YouTube.

Even though I do not have a huge collection of TMNT stuff, I continue to read comics from both the IDW and the old Archie universes (whenever I can buy them!), bought a few shirts, and so far have most of the DVD's from the old show.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by Prowler

I never understood how Biker Mice managed to get a cult following in our country.

The Biker Mice became successful, but it was probably the Power Rangers who mainly reduced the TMNT-fandom for many children around the world.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan

But it's just two years between them.

Yes, that's true but there wasn't much else for me to experience for the first time, at least not much I deemed worthwhile. I had seen all of the 2003 series, the movies, I wanted to read the Mirage comics but they weren't easy to find internationally yet (thank you IDW), I didn't think the Fred Wolf cartoon was worth watching without a better show to fall back on when it got too tiresome, I didn't feel like tracking down the out of print swedish translation of Adventures and I had been told too many bad things about the Next Mutation too check it out.

What's the point of being into something if you only have the bad parts left? It may only have been two years but it was two years where there wasn't anything interesting to check out.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Yes, that's true but there wasn't much else for me to experience for the first time, at least not much I deemed worthwhile. I had seen all of the 2003 series, the movies, I wanted to read the Mirage comics but they weren't easy to find internationally yet (thank you IDW), I didn't think the Fred Wolf cartoon was worth watching without a better show to fall back on when it got too tiresome, I didn't feel like tracking down the out of print swedish translation of Adventures and I had been told too many bad things about the Next Mutation too check it out.

What's the point of being into something if you only have the bad parts left? It may only have been two years but it was two years where there wasn't anything interesting to check out.

TMNT Adventures would have been woth it meanwhile if you didn't read them before.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan

TMNT Adventures would have been woth it meanwhile if you didn't read them before.

Yeah but then there was the issue of tracking down a bunch of out of print comics from the 90's, it seemed a bit too much without the trades.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Yeah but then there was the issue of tracking down a bunch of out of print comics from the 90's, it seemed a bit too much without the trades.

I bought some at a shop in Stockholm, Sweden around mid-2014.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan

I bought some at a shop in Stockholm, Sweden around mid-2014.

Comics Heaven or Serieboden?

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Comics Heaven or Serieboden?

Serieboden

[Tetsu Deinonychus]

I can't say I ever really "left" TMNT. They always remained among my favourite characters. But, there were a few years where the only TMNT media still being produced were Next Mutation and the Image comic, and then not even those.

I watched Next Mutation, even though it was really bad, but I wasn't sad when it got cancelled. It was a misfire at best. And, I avoided Image comics like the plague because they were full of "Edgy, X-treme" nonsense back then (though I wish I had made an exception for The Maxx, as I've really been digging the MTV cartoon lately, and that one seems different). It turns out there was some good storytelling in Volume 3, but the "X-treme 90s" element is there too and turns me off the Image series (and most Image-published action comics) to this day.

So, I'd still watch the movies and read the Archie and Mirage comics from time to time and still considered myself a fan (I was never ashamed to like cartoons and never fit in with my classmates anyway, so I didn't care). But, there just wasn't any current material to be interested in.

But, that changed when I found out there would be a new show on the "Fox-Box" that would be more Mirage accurate. I got excited about that and looked it up, and found out about Mirage vol. 4 and this place, and the rest is history.

[Wesley]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I never left TMNT. Got into it around 1987 as a 3 year old and remained interested every day for 25+ years. Even in the "dead years" from 1997-2001 when all we had was Next Mutation and Image I still followed those until the revival in the early 2000's. You don't "leave" TMNT.

Once you go TMNT you never go back.

I never left tmnt either. My first introduction to them was in the early 90s when I started watching the Fred Wolf cartoon as a kid. I stayed interested in watching the show in my teens when it was regularly rerun on RTÉ two in the 00s and watched the 4Kids series at the same time later on in that decade.

[DevilSpooky]

Originally Posted by Prowler

I never understood how Biker Mice managed to get a cult following in our country.

It was badass, we went from toons like the FW turtles to an action packed toon with bikes, aliens and action, what more could a kid that was going through puberty want? Sure we also had things like Rurouni Kenshin, Gargoyles and Saint Seiya, but those where too serious for their own good for someone coming from FW TMNT, they wheren't for us back then, not yet at least.

[ABrown]

I left at the age of 10 at the end of 1991 because I fell in love with Super Nintendo and Kelly Kapowski on Saved By The Bell. For whatever it's worth, all of the boys in my 5th grade class were going through the same thing. TMNT just wasn't even on any of our radars in 1992. The last memory that I have of the original series was the Technodrome leaving Dimension X and getting stuck in the frozen arctic. Then in 1996 I rediscovered my love for action cartoons. As a teenager I found the Beast Era of Transformers and the Red Sky Era of TMNT to be extremely entertaining.